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7/23/2013

Anti-stress therapy - making homemade pasta from scratch

Huh... It's been ten days since my last post... I think I'm trying to figure out how to do this blog. How often to post, what to post, when to post... It's hard without having feedback from someone, so if you have any comments, suggestions, critiques or thoughts I would love to hear those!

Anyway, one of the things that I really love doing is making doughs. I don't use mixers or dough makers or pre-made dough mixes or food processors, I like doing everything from scratch and love to get my hands dirty. Maybe dirty is not the right word here, since there's nothing more beautiful than making silky, soft, elastic dough ball which will become delicious bread or pastry couple of hours later.

But today we are not making bread dough. I'm going to share with you simple pasta dough recipe. Important part about this recipe is that you can substitute 1/3 of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat four, to give pasta that nutty flavor, and to add some fibers to your diet.

Homemade pasta!

Pasta is probably my favorite food, and I'm always ready to fight with all of those who are saying that pasta is not good for you, that pasta is fattening, this and that. It is true that pasta is really high in carbs, but carbohydrates are essential for proper functioning of human body. What makes pasta fattening are different sauces, and of course that chicken alfredo will have much more calories than Mediterranean grilled chicken and zucchini pasta.

Other thing that I like about making pasta, it's always fun! Especially if you have good company, cold drink and good music playing on your stereo! :) But let's get serious now, here is yourpasta dough recipe: (courtesy of chef Antonio from Marcus Whitman Hotel)

3 1/2 to 4 cups all purpose flour (or substitute one cup of regular flour with one cup whole-wheat flour)

4 extra large eggs

1/2 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil (you can use regular oil as well)

1/2 teaspoon heavy cream or milk

salt and pepper to taste

Mound 3 1/2 cups of the flour in the center of large bowl of wooden cutting board. make a well in the middle of the flour, add the eggs and olive oil, salt and pepper. Using a fork, beat together the eggs and oil and begin to incorporate the flour, starting with the inner rim of the well. As you expand the well, keep pushing the flour up from the base of the mound to retain the well shape.

This is two eggs pasta dough

The dough will come together when a half of the flour is incorporated. At this point, start kneading the dough with both hands, using the palms of your hands, pushing the dough away from your body.
Once there is a cohesive mass, remove the dough form the board and scrape up and discard any leftover bits (I kinda skipped that part last time when I was making a dough, as you can see in the picture :D ).

Lightly re-flour the board and continue kneading for 6 more minutes. The dough should be elastic and a little sticky.
Wrap the dough in plastic and allow to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Beautiful pasta sheet, on the right of course :D

After this you can roll your dough with pasta machine, you can make spaghetti, tortellini, lasagne whatever you want. We made some fettuccine and goat cheese and morel mushroom tortellini which were absolutely delicious.

Making tortellini

This recipe is gonna make a lot of pasta. A LOT of pasta. So you can just divide it in smaller portions, flour baking sheet or cutting board and put your pasta on that (check one of the pictures above, you can see baking sheet in a background with pasta on it), put it in a freezer for an hour and then after pasta is frozen transfer your it in zip-lock bags.
Keep in mind that fresh pasta needs much less time to cook, so check here how to cook fresh pasta.